View Message

Col. John Y.F. Blake was also a cousin of William Early "Tulsa Jack" Blake, 1870-1894, an historic outlaw who rode with Bill Doolin's gang of bank and train robbers in Oklahoma in the 1890s. Michael L. Blake, who won the Motion Picture Academy Award for his screen play of Kevin Kostners' Western epic, "Dances With Wolves," is the Colonel's great-grandson. Lt. Dunbar, the film's protagonist, is modeled on John Y.F. Blake, who grew up in frontier Texas fighting Comanche Indians and driving long-horn steers up the Old Chisholm Trail.